The note rises from a place primeval, guttural, just below my Adam’s Apple. It mixes with that of my fellows to create one, low, pulse. The sound spins, sparkling and crackling with vibrant vibration. The first Altos join in with their phrase, it snakes around our own in passionate joining as the soprano harmonies hover above us, a tentative crescendo and then suddenly pulling away, like a tsunami deciding it would rather return to the depths rather than crash upon the shore, saving it’s fury for another day.
Deep shimmer again lifts itself from a place hiding just behind my heart, bubbling with golden warmth just behind my cheeks and eyes. The music ebbs in liquid ecstasy, dripping down my whole body. I close my eyes to better relish the amber intensity of the all-at-once violent and exquisite coupling of dissonant chords and melodies both unique and the same.
My heart races with the rise of the song. The end is near—all who listen or sing can feel it. The first sopranos soar, the middle voices fill the sound from top to bottom, giving it width and breadth, the low voices, the Chosen Nine, hang upon the setting-sun warm resonation of notes that tenors would call blessings. We are the base and the heart of the sound. I dizzy with expectation. Closer, one, two, three breathe! One, two hold, hold for eternity, then let go. Let the music fly on its own.
It rings through the air in perfect dissonance. Floating above us, shimmering, it is as if one could reach out and touch the fragile splendor. Yet any motion at all will destroy the glass-like mixing of four pure notes. With a fluid motion of hand, the spun sugar essence dissolves and resolves into a deep gentle sound—that of a lullaby. Drifting through that primitive place is once again the perfect G. The air quivers as we decrescendo into silence alive with sound that once was, and will be again.
mise rere nobis
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